


Operation Theatre

by orphan_account



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Cardio!Kara, Chief!J'onn, F/F, General!Alex, Intern!Winn, Neuro!Lena, Ortho!Jimmy, Ortho!M'gann, every character shows up at some point
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-18
Updated: 2017-09-25
Packaged: 2018-12-31 07:40:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12127713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Recovering from an year-old disaster, thanks to one Lex Luthor, the residents of Grant-White Memorial Hospital are finally settling back down, getting used to the new faces that fill the old spaces.That is, until a certain Luthor relative shows up to reopen old wounds. And then there are the newly appointed surgeons, many of whom are hiding many secrets of their own.Between the Operation Rooms, the Intensive Care Units and daily crises, there is a lot that happens behind those closed doors.Or: The Supergirl Grey's Anatomy AU.





	1. Methylxanthine

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, people of the internet!
> 
> Honestly, I don't even know why I would post this. My best friend promised to kill me if I didn't, considering this has been marinating for about 2 months.
> 
> My parents may be doctors (inspiration, anyone?) but ALL the medicine in this is completely and utterly made-up crap. To any doctors reading this, my sincerest apologies.
> 
> English is not my native language, so forgive any errors, kay?  
> Soo...
> 
> Happy reading!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The younger Luthor comes to the hospital and everything goes to hell: with two very stressful operations happening at the same time.  
> So, basically, just another Thursday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are, chapter 1! 
> 
> Enjoy!

Lena Luthor did not know what to expect when she first stepped into the main building of the Grant-White Memorial Hospital. She got stares intermingled with glares, which she did expect. It was understandable, given what Lex had done barely an year ago in this very building. In fact, the renovations weren’t even over yet, as a few repairmen coated a corner with plaster.

 

Honest though her intentions may be, Lena knew that she was salt on the fresh wound. A wound that resulted in the loss of nearly half the doctors of the hospital, old and young alike. A wound which resulted in mass appointment of new doctors; a hiring process through which Lena had easily got in. Her position was a little lower than one in her last hospital, but she had felt it her duty to accept.

 

Oh yes, Lena was expecting glares, was ready and prepared to suffer the hate that would inevitably come for her; hate that she almost believed that she deserved them. She expected the horrified, questioning looks of people wondering if she was insane to come here. Wondering if she was like her brother.  

 

She did not expect a hospital bed to nearly run her over. 

 

She also did not expect the ‘drivers’ to be loads of children in ICU uniforms holding on to the sidebars for dear life, with a blonde in a doctor’s blue overcoat pushing the bed from the helm. The kids were laughing their heads off, like they were having the time of their lives. Doctors and patients alike were jumping out of the path. The other doctors looked slightly annoyed, but were trying to hide a smile as well.

 

“Legion of Superheroes!”, the doctor pushing the bed ahead shouted exaggeratedly as she blew past Lena. “Assemble!”

Watching the kids roar in response, jumping up and down on the bedding, then cheer and fall over each other laughing, was probably the most adorable thing Lena had ever seen. Lena couldn’t keep the smile off her face as the other doctors in the entrance corridor also cheered (though a bit belatedly, as if it was rehearsed).

 

“KARA DANVERS!”, a thundering roar came from behind Lena and it was only from her years of practise with Lillian that she did not cower. The person pushing the bed ( _ Kara _ , it seemed) stopped dead in her tracks. Lena turned to see a gruff black man stomping his way over to the parked bed.  _ Chief of Surgery _ , Lena realised.  _ The great Hank Henshaw. _

 

“WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?”, Hank continued to glower at ‘Kara’. Finally, Lena had a clear look of what the blonde looked like. Blue eyes stared sheepishly at the Chief. “YOU HAVE BEEN HERE THREE WEEKS, AND YOU ARE ALREADY THE BIGGEST MENACE I HAVE EVER SEEN. GET THE PATIENTS BACK IN THE ICU,  _ NOW. _ ”

 

At that, Kara got a contemplative gleam in her eyes that Lena  _ did not  _ like to see on someone pushing around a bed full of children. Henshaw, it seemed, had seen the same thing, because he was prepared to shout some more when Kara cut him off.

 

“Aye-Aye, Chief!”, Kara said cheerily, and swiftly turned to the bed. “Legion!  _ To the base! _ ”

And then she promptly continued to push the bed out of the corridor towards what Lena hoped was the ICU. The cheering of the kids continued as well. An extremely infuriated Hank Henshaw gave chase to the vehicle. Once they were out of sight, everyone turned back to their jobs as if nothing was out of place.

 

_ Well.  _ Lena thought to herself.  _ This is going to be a fascinating place to work in. _

  
  


* * *

Alex Danvers was beginning to get a pounding headache. The General was flooded today due to a road pile-up, and being Chief Of General, Alex had to supervise everything. Well, she had to supervise until Chief Henshaw came around, told  _ Alex  _ off for  _ her sister’s _ hijinks and then told her to stop stalling and get a patient already.

 

So, yes, Alex Danvers was fuming and getting a headache. And she was also treating a patient with a rod in his chest. _ I am going to kill Kara one of these days. I swear that girl is a trouble magnet if there ever was one.  _ Nevertheless, Alex tried to focus on the patient-- ‘Robert’, the chart said his name was.

 

Everything else about ‘Robert’ looked just about fine, except for (of course) the inconvenient metal rod sticking halfway into him, a few minor lacerations on his hands, a few second-degree burns on his legs. He also had some bruising around his temple, but Alex couldn’t know if it was serious or not, so she decided to sit that one out for the moment.  _ Now, as for the rod… _

 

“Donovan.”, she called the General Surgery Intern who was working carefully on the burns on the legs. His head snapped up in attention. “Page Cardio for a consult, please.”

 

Donovan nodded, temporarily abandoning his position on the burns to send out the message. Alex worked on the lacerations as she waited for Snapper (the grumpy, crass Chief of Cardio) to come and examine the main cause for concern. However, Alex almost jumped in surprise when instead of Snapper’s bored  _ “what?”, _ she heard her sister’s curious “ _ Now what do we have here?” _

 

“Kara?”, she asked in confusion, lifting the cotton off the laceration she was treating at the moment. “What are you doing here?”

 

“You called for a consult.”, Kara replied, frowning and smiled at the same time. “I _ am _ the Cardio Attending.” She frowned some more. “Though, if you’re not comfortable…”

 

“No, no.”, Alex said, shaking her head. “It’s fine. It’s just that-- how have we not worked together in the last  _ three weeks _ ?”

 

“Complete coincidence.”, Kara chuckled, finally moving up to Robert. “The ER’s so insane today, Snapper actually allowed me to do something for a change.”

 

Alex sniggered, because nobody really liked the Chief of Cardio, while Kara, the newly-instated Cardio-Attending, was quickly becoming a favorite. Alex admitted that it was tough not to like Kara. Her adorkable sister was as good at winning hearts as she was operating on them.

 

“You heard the news?”, Alex stated as she continued to work. “The new Neuro-Attending is Lex Luthor’s sister.”

Kara frowned, though Alex was not sure if it was in response to what she said or the injury she was consulting.

 

“Can’t be easy for her to come here after what happened.”, Kara said, nodding. “The patient-- Robert, is it?-- well, Robert seems to have a collapsing lung. We need to get the shrapnel out before the pleura gets too damaged.”

 

“Very well, then.”, Alex said, pulling off her gloves, and turning to Donovan. “Book an OR, as soon as possible.”

 

“Why?”, Kara frowned. “We can take it out right here. It’s not rupturing anything. The OR was  _ way  _ overbooked today. Let’s not add to their difficulties anymore.” 

Donovan slowly stopped typing on the pager, confused on what he was supposed to do.

 

“Donovan, book it.”, Alex ordered, glaring at Kara. “But if you are wrong, this man bleeds to death on this very bed.”

 

“Donovan, don’t.”, Kara replied sharply, pulling on her airtight blue gloves again. Donovan actually winced, but continued to type. “ _ Donovan!” _

 

“Sorry, Dr. Z.”, he said, pointing to Alex. “She’s my god.”

 

Kara rolled her eyes at the triumphant look Alex was giving her and made up her mind in a split second. Stepping up to Robert, Kara wrapped her hand around the rusty pole, and took a deep breath. She barely heard Donovan’s gasp or Alex’s shout of denial.

 

Within a second, the pole was pulled out. Kara slammed the rod on the instrument table, turning to the appalled General Doctors.

 

“Well, there’s that.”, Kara said, and promptly started looking for the ultrasound machine.

 

* * *

When James was called in to the ER after the pile-up as the Chief of Ortho, he picked up the closest intern he could find. It was luck that it happened to be the current Ortho Intern-- Winslow “Winn” Schott. The intern was, James knew, the smartest and most bookish of all interns, and James actually wanted the boy to get some experience. It was an urgent consult.

 

Unfortunately, he also spoke a little too much. Actually, way too much. To the point where James was ready to tape his mouth to stop his blabbering.

“... And the time you reversed the joint!”, Winn was saying. “Oh, my-- I almost fainted in excitement when I read that in Ortho weekly. Hey, did you know that Ortho Weekly named you the Greatest…”

 

 _Just a little duct tape._ _No one would question it._

But the fates were in James’ favour, because the General-Attending, Susan Vasquez, waved to him and summoned him to an ER bed on which the curtain was drawn. James frowned at that, because all ER beds must be kept in sight, unless stated otherwise by the patients. Most patients weren’t going to state anything, mainly because they were knocked unconscious.

 

“It’s not a pleasant sight. Fast.”, Vasquez answered his internal pondering, raising the edge on the curtain to tell him to get inside. She looked a little finicky, which was a  _ very _ strange look on the cool-headed General-Attending.

 

James did, and immediately understood why the curtain was drawn. It was a teenaged girl that lay in the bed. Her thigh and abdomen was mangled so horribly that he could see Winn turning slightly blue. She was wearing a soccer jersey, which was now blood-stained.  _ Blood soaked, more like. _

 

“Schott.”, James said, feeling his heart beat a little harder. “Page Lucy, immediately.”

Winn was one of the few old interns who had survived the Luthor-scandal last year. He already knew who everyone was. The Intern raced out of the curtained chamber. Meanwhile, James tried to examine the leg as best he could. It probably wasn’t the best sign that he could see the bone turning yellow before his eyes.

 

Sooner than he thought possible, Lucy (his wife, though that did not matter when they were on-duty) was tossing the curtain aside, analysing the girl’s abdomen. Her pale expression matched James’, which lead him to the conclusion which he did not like.

 

“We need to operate.”, Lucy said, her face steeling up. “ _ Immediately.” _

* * *

“ _ What the hell, Kara?!”,  _ Alex said, rushing over to Robert, examining the gaping hole in his chest.

 

Kara was nonchalantly pulling her gloves off.

“Donovan, book the OR.”, Kara said, and a pale-faced Donovan nodded. “Tell them it isn’t an emergency, but the sooner the better. Get some more gauze from the pharmacy as well. We don’t want an infection here.”

 

“What the hell, Kara?”, Alex restated once Donovan had stepped out. “This man may have bled out if you had been wrong!”

 

Kara glimpsed up from where she was pulling out the portable ultrasound machine and the gel bottle. 

“I wasn’t wrong.”, she stated as she examined Robert’s chest for any rupturing or other immediate concerns.

 

“But you could have been!”, Alex argued, but even to herself, it sounded half-hearted.  _ It may have been the right call, but Kara needs to learn that it may not be the same next time.  _

 

“Relax, Alex.”, Kara sighed, rolling her eyes and frowning at the ultrasound screen. “You know that I can tell these things.”

 

“But still!”, Alex sighed in response. “You shouldn’t, Kara. You don’t need to. You did something reckless, and you could get in trouble for it.”

 

“Okay. Alex, listen.”, Kara snapped, her patience finally breaking. “You paged for a consult. I gave you a consult. I acted like the Cardio-Attending I am. I took decisions like the Cardio Attending I am. In here, you need to see me as the cardiologist first and your sister second. That’s the only way we can work together.”

 

Alex drew back a bit, her anger decreasing, because Kara didn’t usually speak out like that, and she  _ was _ a bit at fault in this situation. She tried to say something a couple of times, but came up empty.

 

“Okay, I’m sorry.”, she said finally, rubbing her forehead. “It’s just-- could you not do your…  _ thing  _ around here?”

 

Kara nodded in acknowledgement, but she was still frowning at the screen in her hand. Alex couldn’t figure out what was taking the examination so long, but Kara was the cardiologist here, so she gave her the benefit of the doubt. 

 

Alex felt like she was missing something, something that was itching her mind as she worked on the now-hole in Robert’s chest, but she couldn’t figure out what, so she dropped it.

 

“Anyway.”, she said instead. “What did Donovan just call you? Dr. P?”

 

“Dr. Z.”, Kara chuckled, smiled slightly. “They couldn’t have  _ two  _ Dr. Danvers-- it’s just too confusing-- so you’re Dr. Danvers and I’m Doctor Z.”

 

Alex chuckled at that, and was going to respond when Kara cut her off with a tense “ _ Alex.” _ It wasn’t something Alex could see yet, but she had learnt to trust Kara when it came to all this. Immediately, she went into hyperalert mode.

 

“What is it?”, Alex asked, pressing the call button as she poised to get into action at moment’s notice. Kara was putting away her instruments as well.  _ Tossing them away. This can not be good. _

 

Kara didn’t need to answer her. Seconds later, Robert’s body started seizing uncontrollably, his mouth fuming. She and Kara held him down as Donovan came rushing inside. She could barely hear Kara fiercely shouting orders. Though Alex would never admit it, the shouting was a little terrifying.

 

“ _ Page the OR! Get a Neuro! NOW!” _

 

_ What is it?  _ Alex thought to herself, tightening her hold on the seizing man as Kara pressed a syringe of Diazepam into his arm.  _ Come on, Alex. What did you miss? Why is Kara calling neuro?  _ She almost smacked herself when she saw the answer.  _ The forehead bruise. It’s aggravated. You idiot!  _

 

She could do nothing but climb onto the lower side-bar and hold on to Robert as Kara and Donovan started pushing the bed out of the ER room at top speed.

 

* * *

James and Lucy sent Winn away, because this was going to be a  _ very  _ high-speed operation, and Winn was just an intern. They pushed the bed straight from the ER towards the OR. The Ortho-Attending, M’gann, joined them on their way to dragging the little girl to the OR. The Gastro-Chief position was still to be filled again, so Lucy was going to take full responsibility for this one.

 

In his peripheral vision, he could also see the Danvers sisters dragging a middle-aged black man out of an ER room towards the OR, but he didn’t register it until much later. His chief concern at the moment was the young girl to be saved. He hoped Winn had been able to get him an OT room.

 

The trip to the OR was a blur. He didn’t think he had ever scrubbed as quickly and harshly as he had at that moment. It was only Lucy’s hand on his arm that he snapped out of his daze. She said nothing, but simply nodded in determination. James took her hand in his, trying to quiet himself for a second. It was difficult, but he managed it. Together, they walked into the sterile OR.

 

_ The girl is dying… But we can save her. We have to save her. _

 

* * *

Kara thanked her experience of pushing around ‘The Legion’ at the moment, because it  _ really _ did help her maneuver her way to the OR in record time. They handed over the bed to the OR officials, almost running into the scrubbing room.  _ We need a holder. _ She thought to herself. Alex was already putting on the shoe covers. Kara looked around.

 

“Winn!”, she called out when she finally saw him. He was half-wearing the surgical dress, like he’d been thrown out at the last moment. “Scrub in.  _ Now.” _

Winn gulped under Kara’s intense stare, and immediately ran into the operating room. Alex tossed Kara the hair and shoe covers as Kara took a place beside her.

 

A minute later, another doctor walked into the OR prep room, which Kara assumed would be the Neuro-Attending who had started work today. There was no Neuro-Chief yet, so this would have to do.

“Neuro!”, Kara called out, thankful that the doctor’s green eyes snapped towards her. “Scrub in. One minute.”

 

The black-haired woman grabbed the covers almost immediately without any questions, which Kara appreciated at the moment. There was no time. She squeezed her eyes shut for a second, letting her mind run free; the way Alex always chastised her not to. Numbers flew in front of her eyes before she snapped them open. 

 

_ Forty-five seconds. His next seizure is forty-five seconds away. _

 

“My name’s Lena.”, the neurologist was saying as she tied her hair up. Kara appreciated what was obviously an effort to calm the frenzy down (perhaps she had mistaken her pondering look as Kara freaking out). Alex, however, did not seem to appreciate it.

 

“As of right now.”, Alex snapped. “I don’t care.”

 

Kara expected Lena to look offended at Alex’s crassness, but to Kara’s surprise, Lena simply nodded and went back to scrubbing her hands in the basin. Kara briefly saw James and Lucy scrub into OR-2, but she didn’t really think about it at the moment. She was busy thinking about Robert. 

  
  
  


_ The pericardial fluid was seeping out-- but then the seizures?-- his metabolic speed-- no, his heart rate fluctuated standardly-- but his blood pressure spiked… s... _ seven _ times-- that’s not too much-- the radial art-- no, the pole-- but the breach was… two by three inches, and the sub-vertebral vein system-- no, no, there was no gush rupture-- _

 

She felt like she was reaching the answer; it was within her reach-- but she was snapped out of her thinking when Winn threw open the OR-1 door with a bang, looking stricken. The sound of furious beeping was heard behind him.

“Hurry up!”, he said, disappearing inside again.

 

Their forty-five seconds were up. Alex, Kara and Lena surged to the door as fast as they could.

 

* * *

“ _ Her stomach is ruptured. The hydrochloric acid is damaging tissue.” _

 

James worked even faster on the leg on the girl as he heard Lucy silently groan beside him. Outwardly, they both were as cool, calm and collected as any professional doctors should be. But James could tell that Lucy was writhing inside, her stomach twisting into painfully tight knots not unlike her own.

 

He had tried to salvage the skin. It had not worked. He had tried to salvage the muscles. It had to worked. He had tried to salvage the bone. It had not worked. As much as it hurt him, he knew what he had to do. The bloodied jersey was now on display, thrown carelessly into the corner of the OT.  _ The girl’s probably a football player. Oh God. _

 

But James’ medical brain ran to only one conclusion: the leg increased chances of infection, overloading of body fluids and was an overall disadvantage. It was, in all conditions possible, unsalvageable.

 

“I’m going to remove the leg.”, he said out loud. He didn’t think it was possible, but it made him feel worse. “M’gann, hand me the saw.”

 

“Do it fast.”, Lucy said, and he could see her sweating. “We have to close her up as soon as we can. We can only drain so much body fluid.”

Behind him, we could hear the buzzing of the bone saw being turned on.

 

_ God help me. _

 

* * *

Alex’s breath hitched when she saw Robert seizing on the operation table. How was she going to operate on a man who was vibrating  _ that much? _ Doctor Schott, who was holding on to the Robert alongwith the OT helpers, looked at her in desperation.  _ What are we supposed to do with this? _

 

“How are we going to operate like this?”, the neurologist asked. Apparently, her mind was following the same path that Alex’s was.

 

“Thirty seconds.”, Kara’s voice made Alex jump.  _ What?  _ “The interval between the seizures will be thirty seconds.”

 

The Neuro-Attending looked over, staring at Kara’s zoned out fact with curiosity and a raised eyebrow. Alex rolled her eyes.  _ Kara really has to stop blurting everything that flies into her mind.  _ But even as Alex was fully prepared to snap Kara out of it, the beeping on the table evened out, and Kara immediately walked over to the OR table.

 

The neurologist rushed in right behind Kara, and Alex rushed to follow as well. The Luthor was quick to examine the head wound as Winn started setting up a digital counter next to the table. Kara was pushing in even more Diazepam.  _ Isn’t that the third injection?  _

 

“Kara, are you sure he can handle it?”, Alex asked, picking up a scalpel because she was getting fidgety with nothing to do. Robert’s chances weren’t looking pretty right now.

 

“This is the last injection.”, Kara promised, tossing the syringe into the bin. “It’s giving us more time between seizures, but any more and we compromise him.”

 

Alex nodded, for there was nothing to be said. A beep of a digital clock loudly sounded in the OR, and right on time, Robert started seizing again. Immediately, Winn put the oxygen mask back on, and the Luthor immediately retracted herself.

 

“Tension in the meninges.”, the Luthor said, frowning worriedly. “It’s causing the seizures. We have to… the easiest solution is to drill a hole.”

 

“Well, we can’t do that.”, Alex snapped in frustration.  _ Like we needed any more problems.  _ “The seizures are  _ too damn close _ . And while he’s seizing, you can’t drill without fear of serious tissue damage… It’s over.”

 

Alex groaned in frustration, leaning on the heavy machinery. Kara stomped her foot, pulling off her hair cover, sighing and throwing her scalpel harshly back on the tray. It clattered as it struck the scissors. Kara glared at the heart beat monitor, as if the unsteady rise and fall may give her the answer she wanted. 

 

The Danvers sisters hated nothing more than giving up on a patient.

 

“I can do it.”

 

They both snapped their heads towards the neurologist so fast Alex was sure they got whiplash. Alex’s heart jumped into her throat. Everyone seemed to have stopped doing what they were and were staring at the Luthor. Winn almost dropped the digital counter he was holding onto and resetting.

 

“I can do it.”, the Luthor said again, turning to Kara. Alex could tell that she was determined. “It’s a low chance, but it’s something, at least. I could probably do it in an interval... but… but what about the circulatory system repair?”

 

Alex almost hit herself the second time that day. They could stop the seizures, but the operation also had to be conducted  _ immediately.  _ Robert’s systems were already compromised because of the seizures and even further because of the operation.  _ How would they operate in less than one minute intervals? _

 

“Don’t worry about that.”

 

Alex probably got whiplash again as she spun her head to look at Kara, who was looking at the table with new-found intensity.

 

_ Oh no. This is going to be a disaster. _

 

However, one look at Kara’s face, her mouth stuck in a firm line of certainty, sweat already beading on her forehead _ ,  _ her eyes glazed over, and Alex knew that there was no turning back. Alex could now only do one thing: be there for Kara. Alex nodded; to the people in the room and to herself.

 

“Let’s do it.”, Alex said, and Winn started resetting the clock.

 

* * *

The saw went through the bone so easily that James felt nauseous at it.  _ Come on, you idiot. You’ve done this like, ten thousand times. Why the hell are you reacting like this to just another operation? _ He tried to reason it out, tried to make sense of why he was over-reacting, but soon gave up. You couldn’t reason some things. You just had to barrel ahead when they happened.

 

“Her liver’s getting compromised.”, Lucy said, almost-shouting over the noise of the saw.

James didn’t even realise that he had started sweating. He nodded in understand, immediately reading the subtext.  _ Hurry the hell up and close her up or there will be nothing left to close. _

 

The saw was through before he knew it. They removed the leg, stopped the blood flow, and shut it off as best they could. James sewed the severed part as quickly as he possibly could. He even smiled a bit as he was putting in the last stitch.  _ We did it. I did it. Now we can close her up and send her ho-- _

 

His train of thought was interrupted by the beeping of the monitor rising in frequency. The emergency bell of the monitor started ringing furiously. Lucy started working even faster, shouting for forceps and scissors at break-neck pace. It could only mean one thing, James realised. The girl was crashing.

 

_ NO, NO, NO! I had saved her. She’s going to be okay! _

 

He quickly abandoned his position near the leg to go by Lucy’s side and help her. He didn’t even think about what Lucy was doing, but tried to assist her, follow her lead. He had trained one eye on the monitor. His heart fell when the heart rate went below forty. We could hear the tension in the room as everyone realised what was happened.

 

“She’s going into _ v-fib _ . Defibrillators!”, James called, and the next moment, they were put into his waiting hands. He quickly placed them on the pads M’gann placed on the girl’s chest. Lucy continued to work on her abdomen. “  _ Charging to 140...Clear!” _

 

Everyone moved out of the way as James pressed the button and the girl was shocked. Her body arched with the flow of electricity. She settled back down, but the furious beeping of the monitor continued. She was still in v-fib, and her heart was still failing.  _ Come on, come on. Work with me here. I can still save you. COME ON! _

 

_ “Clear!” _  
  


* * *

Lena never thought she would be poised to attack a man’s forehead with a drill in her hand. The intern in the room was holding him down at the moment, all of them waiting for the seizure to end. Everyone was staring at her, and Lena, oddly, felt extremely self-conscious.

 

She didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but she was standing ten steps away, and the General Chief had pretty dulcet tones, so she was hearing the conversation clearly. Also, Lena hoped that it would help take her mind off the fact that she had agreed to do a fifteen minute job in under a minute.  _ Why did I agree to work here again? _

 

“Kara, I can’t let you do this.”, The General Chief was pleading. “You could lose your license! Why are you doing this?”

The Chief looked pained, as if this was something that was her fault. Kara, on the other hand, looked almost serene.

 

“Just around Tuesday, then. ”, Kara answered, chuckling and shaking her head. “And because this is my fault. It started with the rod… I’ll explain later.”

 

Lena thought that it was amazing that Kara cared about the patient enough to do... Whatever she was doing. It sounded risky anyway. Lena guessed that it would have something to do with the big gaping hole in the guy’s chest, but before she could think anymore about it, Kara gave a shout of alarm, almost like a warning, and everybody jumped into position.

 

“Five seconds.”, Kara said, and Lena started the drill. “You’ll get about fifteen seconds before you need to start retreating, Lena.”

 

Lena nodded, and closed her eyes for a second as Robert’s seizing gradually slowed down. She felt like a racer, like a tiger, waiting for the exact moment to attack. The seizing stopped, Kara said “ _ Now!”  _ and without any hesitation, Lena brought the drill to the man’s aggravated temple. 

 

She remembered her mother, the Legendary Lillian Luthor, saying to her sixteen year old self that ‘Neurosurgery was slow and methodical and graceful, such that it seems like a ballerina floating on air.’ If only she could see her now, her mother would certainly disown her. If anything, she was twerking with that drill.

 

She was already using the drill on a _ very-unsafe-high  _ speed, especially when it came to going through the skin, so there was a little blood flying around. It stained her robes, and was very disgusting to think about, but she plodded on, until she hit the skull. Quickly, she glanced towards the clock. 

 

_ 00:09 and counting down.  _

 

_ Dammit.  _ Lena then decided to do something that would have gotten her thrown out of med school. Something that was so big a  _ no-no,  _ Lex would probably kill her if she did do something like it.  _ Well, her Lex would have killed her. Now, this Le-- Lena, this is not the time to bring up emotional trauma. The patient. Focus on the patient. _

 

She started  _ pushing  _ the drill in, applying pressure on the back so that it went in even faster. Lena knew that she would have to be very precise, or this man may just end up with a drill hole in his brain. Lena tried not to think about that too much. She felt the drill something liquid-- cerebrospinal fluid.

 

_ Yes! _

 

Lena pulled the drill out sharply, which would leave some  _ very  _ damaged tissue and damaged muscles to the patient’s forehead, but would also keep him alive. He’d probably not get angry over not being able to move his eyebrows. Cerebrospinal fluid started to drip out downwards out of the drill hole and the tension between the meninges started to decrease. 

 

She glanced at the clock ( _ 00:02 and still counting down)  _ and resisted the urge to pump her fist. She had done it. She had done the impossible.

 

Lena finally dialled back into the OR to see everyone cheering for her, even as Winn and the OR workers held the man down from the next seizure. Lena looked up and saw that the upper observation room was  _ full  _ of doctors-- Chiefs, Attendings, Residents, and Interns.  _ Well, we did do something of a miracle. This is going to create a reputation. _

 

Even the General-Chief was smiling a bit (and Lena could already tell that she wasn’t easily impressed), and Kara was giving her a thumbs-up with a smile that told Lena that everything would be okay. Lena’s heart jumped a bit. 

 

Lena had done it. She had handed the reigns over. Even as she saw, Kara took a deep breath and straightened up. It was like all the nervous energy that Lena associated with the cardiologist poured out of Kara.  

 

The digital clock was going to hit zero yet again. Everyone had stopped talking and had their eyes on Kara.

 

_ Why do I feel like something big is going to happen? _

 

* * *

“ _ Clear!” _

 

James could not believe that this was happening. He refused to believe the flat-lining sound that he was hearing, because he had done everything,  _ everything,  _ that he could have and the girl was going to survive. There were no two ways about it. The girl was going to survive. She had to.

 

“ _ Push in two milligrams  _ _ Epinephrine! Charging to 200…” _

 

Lucy had finally given up trying to save the girl’s abdomen. She ran to snatch the injection from the OR worker, pushing it into the girl’s arm followed by some adrenaline to hopefully give it a kickstart. James shocked the girl yet again.  _ Come on, you. I know you can do it. Come on. _

 

_ “Clear!” _

 

* * *

Alex didn’t even know it had started, until it had literally started happening in front of her and her little sister had started ordering her around. Normally, when Kara ordered her to do something, she’d laugh in Kara’s face. But when the  _ Cardio-Attending  _ started to order her around, Alex felt compelled to listen to that version of her.

 

Winn had nearly jumped off the patient once he had stopped seizing, and Kara had fluently started working on Robert. Alex had almost forgotten what Kara looked like when she operated freely. It was captivating, like a well-calculated storm starting to rage. Alex couldn’t help but stare open-mouthed.

 

A quick look around told her that she was not the one. The noisy Observation Deck, which was filled to the brim, ( _ Did people have nothing better to do?)  _ had grown utterly silent and Alex couldn’t help but smirk as every single eye was focused on Kara. Kara, on the other hand, was effortlessly making her way through the guy’s chest, and minute pieces of shrapnel now lay in a tray beside her. 

 

Even the helpers, who were supposed to be helping, was simply staring at Kara, who was flying around the patient. Alex quickly gestured them to move out of the way.  _ Kara… didn’t need any help right now.  _ Alex was pretty sure Kara could do this operation solely by herself in record time.

 

She heard the Neuro-Attending say to the Intern “ _ It’s like… It’s like seeing an artist at work.”  _ and Alex couldn’t help but agree. It was awe-spiring. 

 

But even as Alex was staring, she could feel Kara’s hands starting to shake. Her hands weren’t moving fast enough. That was the Catch-22 that was Kara Danvers. Without another thought, Alex hit the button so that no sound could travel out of the room. The Observation Deck would see; but they would not hear.

 

“Kara.”, she said, careful not to break her sister out of her trance. “Talk to me; tell me what you see.” 

 

“ _ The carotid.”,  _ Kara said a little uncertainly, slowly getting in the flow of talking and working at the same time. “ _ The rod punctured the aorta, created a bubble pressure. That’s why his heartbeat remained even. When I took it out…” _

 

_ Talking helps. It always did.  _ As she continued to talk, Kara’s hands stopped shaking; her hitched, tense breathing even out and her working on the patient regained its starting speed.  _ That’s it. _

 

“... _ Blood shot up the carotid; aggravated the wound; the meninges got caught in the crossfire. That’s why his carotid pulse doesn’t match his heartbeat.” _

 

“What?”, the intern exclaimed and started checking the carotid pulse, and Alex shut him off with a glare, though she felt the same way he did.  _ That’s not something anyone would pick up. Maybe talking was not the best idea in front of witnesses. _

 

“How did you calculate that?!” 

Alex knew the answer to that though, and she was more than happy to never tell the Intern anything about it.  _ Kara knows more than just that. If she wasn’t operating simultaneously, she’d probably be rattling off pulse difference values or something that isn’t supposed to be mentally calculated. _

 

_ “... and that’s why the heartbeat drops every seven seconds; every seventh loop, the wound used to give back-suction and the heart used to lurch, causing the rise and drop.” _

All eyes in the room turned to the monitor, and gasped when they realised that what Kara was saying was true.

 

“That’s unbelievable.”, the intern said, with great admiration. “But... uh, what are you doing?”

That was a pretty good question, Alex thought. Everyone was standing back, and Kara was working alone on the patient, so no one but Kara knew what was going on. Alex stared at what Kara was setting up, tubes and pipes and all, and glanced at the clock.

 

_ 00:13. How had it only been about thirty seconds? It seems like minutes had gone by already.  _

 

_ What are you doing anyway, Kara?  _ Alex couldn’t understand; which felt very odd to her. What do you need pipes for? When you have a compromised carotid, you work to rectify that.  _ Unless the carotid cannot be helped anymore, in which case there’s not much you can do in thirty seconds.  _ Next to her, the Neuro-Attending gasped. She looked like  _ she  _ had figured it out, and Alex was a little miffed but curious as well. 

 

But she did not see what the neurologist said next coming. Mainly because the idea was so insane, so esoteric, that it couldn’t possibly be true. But Alex then realised,  _ painfully even,  _ that it all made a little too much sense.

 

“ _ You’re setting up an artificial carotid artery!” _  
  


* * *

__

_ “Clear!” _

 

James was getting flustered then, and he felt his anxiety seep into his voice, no matter how hard he tried to stop the flow of emotions.  _ What happened to hardass Doctor James? Why the hell do I suddenly have emotions now?  _ James, for all his genius, smarts and pandering articles in Ortho Weekly, had no answer.

 

Everyone had stepped back at this point, because there was nothing else to do. Nothing except what James was doing. That meant, James realised with the sickening feeling in his gut intensifying, that all rested in his hands. His hands and his hands alone. He had to save the girl now. “ _ Charging to 220… Clear!” _

 

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Lucy, standing behind him, was panting. M’gann was standing in front of him with her arms crossed, her face a picture of sadness, her expression forlorn. Everything seemed to be silent, coated by a single sharp long unstoppable note encompassing everything else.  _ Why was there silence? _

 

_ A single sharp long unstoppable note. _

 

His brain took a second to connect the sound with its meaning. It slowly reached the conclusion, as if his brain was fearing it as much as every other little bit of his body. A single sharp long unstoppable note. A universal sign of the end. The end of life. A sound of silence even when it tore through itself, collapsing and collapsing until a black hole of nothing was created where James Olsen once stood. 

 

_ A flatline. _

 

That’s when he stopped. When he stopped trying. When he stopped holding onto the paddles so tightly that his nails dug into his palm, when he stopped rubbing them together, when he stopped asking everyone to clear, when he stopped trying to not sob, when he stopped denying everything M’gann’s expression had been telling him. When he stopped hoping.

 

_ He had failed. _

 

* * *

“Okay, I may not be a doctor yet.”, Winn was saying, as Lena and the Attending Chief both wore expressions as shocked as his. “But isn’t that supposed to be… um,  _ impossible _ ?”

 

The logical part of Lena’s mind was screaming at her to get a grip. There was  _ no way  _ Kara, or anyone for that matter, could set up an artificial artery in the time that was left ( _ 00:13).  _ Then again, Kara was going around so fast that she was almost just a blur.

 

Lena wasn’t sure what, but  _ something  _ was going on here. Something no one else understood. Apparently, this wasn’t that all Cardios in this hospital were mad scientist type geniuses (though Lena could relate), since the Cardio-Chief was furiously trying to get through to the OT by the Lobby Com. Lena appreciated the Attending-Chief turning it off.

 

History is best created uninterrupted.

 

“Not impossible _ ”,  _ the Attending-Chief was saying, pointing to Kara. “Just, practically, done very rarely.”

 

Lena, whose brain begged her to differ, couldn’t help but agree. With what she had done, she would have had hope. She  _ had  _ created a bit of history herself, aggressive and  _ drill-y  _ as it was. It had given her mad hope. Now, seeing Kara bounce around the patient like a Ph.D.-holding basketball, it was almost… plausible.

 

“How, uh.”, Lena said to the others, and she almost gave that stutter a pass because this situation warranted it. “How can we help?”

 

She had noticed Kara’s barely coherent blabbering, now being reduced to incoherent mumbling, her voice cracking. Her brow was dotted with sweat, and she was panting as she fumbled around with the tube.

 

“Kara.”, Chief was saying, softly, as if Kara might just turn her scalpel attack on someone else. “Would you like to keep talking? It’ll help.  _ We’ll  _ help _. _ ”

 

It was perhaps something between the sisters (the Doctors Danvers, Lena had thought with a smirk when she had first been told), something between the sibling bond, that made Kara immediately listen to her.

 

“ _ Sub-cranial-- time?”,  _ Kara was saying without looking up and Lena’s eyes widened at the fact that she hadn’t been paying attention. Three heads snapped towards the digital clock on the counter.

 

_ 00:06. _

 

_ Shit. _ That was not good. That was very not good. Here, seeing Kara go around like a caffeinated maniac, it felt like time had slowed down, like hours had gone by, when it had only been about half-a-minute that had gone by. Lena’s mind let out a hysterical mental laugh.  _ She’s actually doing a sub-track in half-a-minute. Half-a-minute! _

 

That optimistic thought was apparently a very unlucky one, because everything went to hell at that moment. Everything went from hopefully bad to hopelessly worse. The one thing that they had been trying to avoid finally caught up to them. The seizures started kicking in, a second too soon. 

 

_ The Diazepam’s wearing off-- it’s decreasing the time-period. Did not think of that. _

 

Winn jumped onto the man to keep everything (a lot of things) attached to him in place. Kara, who had apparently been shaken by the sudden seizures, somehow taken into shock by this, stumbled back, collapsing right into her sister’s arms. Whatever she had done to herself was apparently wearing off. She was waving her hand…  _ pointing? She’s pointing! _

 

Lena had never moved so quickly, immediately following Kara’s line of sight, and coming to the only logical thing Kara had asked her to do.  _ The Dialysis Machine. It’s not on yet!  _ Without even thinking, Lena leapt towards it, and for a second, she felt like she was flying. Like she was a superhero… just for a second, she thought she would make it.

 

Her hand hit the button, and the machine blazed to life, whirring and screeching. Red fluid started flowing into the tubes. The man, help firmly in Winn’s arms, slowly stopped seizing. The beeping even out. Kara, now lying in her sister’s arms, sighed softly, contently, and went limp.

 

_ They had succeeded. _

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you like it? I hope you did!
> 
> Comment below, let me know!


	2. Antipyretic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reeling with the impact of what they had done, the people of Grant-White now have to face the repercussions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm BACK.  
> so I did decide to continue this, because of your beautiful comments and find words.  
> Thank you SO much!
> 
> So here's part 2 of the opening. It's not my best, but oh well.
> 
> Also, fun factoid, James and Lucy are so inspired by my parents that it is NOT even funny. (yeah, it kinda is.)
> 
> Anyway, nothing more to say, I guess.
> 
> Happy reading!

“Does _ anyone _ here care to explain themselves?”   
  


Winn dared not open his mouth, certainly not while he was under the Medusa Glare (which was what he and Adam, the paeds intern, has christened it.) The usually comfortable armchair, one he had only seen previously when he’d sat in the same spot  in his interview, was surprisingly stiff today.

 

Or maybe he was the one that was stiff. He certainly felt like sticking himself to the chair and never getting up again. Or maybe the earth could open up and swallow him whole. Anything to get away from the embarrassment and fear of this moment. Why had he agreed to scrub-in in the first place?

 

He suddenly couldn’t remember as Dean of Medicine, Diana Prince, stared him down.

 

He honestly didn’t get why he was called to the office too. All he’d done was work the timer and hold the guy down. And give the guy a shot of adrenaline, which he now realised was supposed to be bad with head injuries.  _ I’m just an intern, listening to the people in-charge… like Doctor Z! Oh god, I listened to Doctor Z. I actually did whatever insanity Doctor Z told me to do. What was I thinking?! I’m so screwed. _

 

The absolute silence and Winn’s thoughts were interrupted by a loud slurp. 

 

Four heads swivelled around to look at Kara, who was happily drinking her double-caramel double-mocha Starbucks frappuccino. Apparently, the surgery had taken a lot out of her and left the cardiologist in immediate need of a sugar fix. Finally noticing the eyes on her, Kara detached herself from her drink, shifting in her chair, her hand going up to fix her glasses. She cleared her throat, following with a mumbled, “Sorry.”

 

And that was all the invitation Diana Prince ever needed.

 

“ _ You should be. _ ”, she scathed, her voice sardonic. “All of you should be; you threatened the life of a man you vowed to help. There is a  _ reason  _ people do not experiment with lives. In your little wonderland, maybe it’s okay to risk the life of a patient, but in  _ my _ hospital, such actions will not be tolerated.”

 

She turned to stare at each of them individually, as if threatening themselves to speak up. None of them did. She turned towards Doctor Danvers, who immediately sat up straighter.

 

“Doctor Danvers”, she continued. “You are the Chief of General Surgery, and you’ve been here the longest. You held the senior-most authority in that room, and yet, here we are. Explain to me why you did not take immediate action.”

 

“With all due respect, Dr. Prince.”, Alex said, meeting her glare with one of her own. “I was out of my depth, and I trusted the judgement of our Cardiology and Neurology Attending, who saved the life of an innocent man today.”

 

“But what if they hadn’t?”, Dr. Prince continued, raising her voice. “What if he had died on the table?!”

 

“You was going to die anyway!”, Alex replied, shaking her head aggressively.

 

“ _ Prove it!”,  _ Dr. Prince said, to which Alex had no reply. “You can’t. You can’t because you hadn’t documented the tests yet. Just another rule you brushed off to pull today’s little stunt. What if that person’s family sued the hospital? Who would pay the dues? Would you, Mister Schott?”

 

Winn was shocked by the sudden shift of attention towards him, almost jumping out of his chair in fright and hurriedness to answer the question posed to him.

 

“Uh, um-- er, ah-- n-no, no ma’am.”

 

_ Stop stuttering like an idiot, you idiot. It’s just one of the brightest medical minds of the twenty-first century talking down to you. No big deal, totally not gonna message all your college buddies (all two of them, ha) about it. _

 

“Exactly.”, Dr. Prince nodded, partly satisfied. “Luckily, you were simply doing your job.” _ Oh thank God, I won’t die. _ “And surprisingly, so were you, Doctor Danvers. Despite the fact that I know where your intentions  _ truly  _ lay, you were still by the book. Which brings me to you, Doctor Kara Danvers.”

 

Unsurprisingly, Doctor Z had turned her focus back to the drink in her hand, but looked up to look at the Dean. She was surprisingly calm for someone facing the glare of the Dean. That wasn’t to say that she still wasn’t doing that nervous fidgeting thing that she did with her glasses, or constantly moving in her seat.  _ At least she isn’t stuttering her way to getting suspended like you were. _

 

“Could you please explain to me.”, the Dean was saying. “How you were able to set up an artificial artery in around... two minutes?”

 

Kara turned her head to look at all of them, and for a second, she did look like a deer caught in headlights before her passive face returned in its place. She cleared her throat a couple times, leaning forward in her chair.

 

“W-well, you see, Dean, the truth-- that is, the thing that happened, in that OR, on that table was, um...”  _ About that non-stuttering part.  _ “I… was, uh… caffeinated. Yeah.”

 

Dr. Prince looked at her in disbelieving dismissal, eyes raised and lips in a straight line.

 

“Caffeinated.”, Dr. Prince said, and Kara nodded vehemently. Diana sighed. “Doctor Danvers, if you are lying to me, or hiding something that pertains to this matter, please disclose it immediately, or the repercussions may be dire. So I will ask you again: how did you set up that artificial artery so quickly?”

 

“Well, Doct--”, Alex started but was immediately stopped with a raised finger from the Dean, whose eyes were focused on the blonde. Kara was visibly gulping, clearly not knowing what to say. Looking at her chewing on her lip, Winn quickly made up his mind.

 

_ Oh man, I’m going to kill myself for this. _

 

“Well, Dean.”, he started, almost hesitating when the glare turned to him. “Considering the fact that I brought Doctor Z three coffees this morning, and I’m not the only who actively brings them to her, I think it’s pretty safe to say that she isn’t lying.”

 

“Is she not?”, the Dean said, pacing towards him. “And what would that person on the table say?”

 

“ _ Robert.” _

 

Everyone turned to look at the person who hadn’t spoken for the entire conversation.

 

“His name is Robert.”, Lena said. “And he teaches basic English at the Children’s Hospital. He fell over into one of the construction zones yesterday morning, and his wife’s name is Debia, who is waiting outside right now for someone to assure her that her husband is going to be okay, while we are all sitting here chatting, adding to her anxiety.”

 

_ Okay, wow. Lena Luthor is savage when it comes to tearing people down. I guess it’s in the blood, huh? _

 

And something sudden clenched in Winn’s heart as he thought about the events a year ago: the fire, the screaming, desperately trying to hold onto her arm, even as his burnt skin hurt with contact.  _ I can lift it. I’m not leaving you. Winn, you need to get out of here. I’m so sorry. I can’t do this. You’ll ha-- _

 

He was snapped out of his trance by the Dean’s voice.

 

“Doctor Danvers and Doctor Danvers, please go talk to the patient’s family and assure them that he is alright. Mister Schott, please go check on the patient and make sure he is well enough to be visited by the family.” A small pause. “Miss Luthor and I have a few things to talk about.”

 

He had never scuttled out of a room faster.

 

* * *

 

He knew where the secret stack was. Considering the fact that he had placed it there, you knew  _ exactly  _ where the secret stack was.

 

Which was why James Olsen found himself sitting in a dark storage room with a half-empty bottle of wine in his hand. He had stopped crying around an hour ago, and from that point he’d simply drank his way to two and a half bottles down. And he still hadn’t figured out why he was reacting like a goddamn seven year old who had scraped their knee. He was the  _ Chief of Ortho!  _ And a renowned doctor! 

 

_ What the hell is wrong with me? _

 

His thoughts were interrupted by the door of the storage opening. For a second, he was afraid it would be someone like Henshaw or Prince. He even tried to hide the bottles with his uncoordinated hands, wiping at his eyes furiously, even as more tears started to flow. He was trying to get up, but felt to dizzy to balance himself.

 

Luckily, it was only Lucy. Lucy, whose eyes were red and slightly puffy, who looked like she was going through the same thing that he was. Lucy, who always knew exactly where to find him. Her eyes drifted towards the bottle in his hands. For a moment, James thought that she was going to criticise him, tell him how he was a grown man and shouldn’t be crying on a storage floor.

 

Instead, she sat down next to him, taking the bottle from him and taking a swig as she did. Lifting his arm, she put it around herself, snuggling into him. He could feel her hand where it was touching the skin of his shoulder, could feel the cold of the metal from where the ring sat on her finger. It grounded him.

 

Presently, he could hear her sniffling, hugging him closer, and with a shock he realised, that they were going through the same thing.

 

“Do you think about her?”, he whispered, not daring to raise his voice, not daring to break this equilibrium of peace that there was between them right now, this place detached from all their jobs and fears.

 

“All the time.”, Lucy said, wiping at her eyes. “All the time.”

 

_ Just when they’d thought they could finally have it all… _

 

“I love you.”, he whispered in her hair, and it was as much a reassurance to him s it was to her, something tangible, something constant.

 

“I love you too.”

 

Neither of them said anything else, and James didn’t think that they could. Sometimes, there is nothing left to be said. They simply sat there together for who knew how long. Neither of them particularly cared.

 

Eventually, it was Lucy who spoke up.

 

“They identified the girl. Julia Hobbins. Her parents are coming over right now to… to see her.”

 

James knew what she was trying to say.  _ We operated on her, so we have to break the news to her parents.  _ His chest tightened simply thinking about it.

 

“If you don’t want to, I can ask Lois--”

 

“No, no.”, James cut her off, surprising even himself. “I’ll-- I’ll talk to them; it’s the least I can do.”

 

Lucy nodded against his chest, staring to shift and get up. James hugged her tighter to stop her, sighing softly.

 

“Just a little while longer?”, he said, even as his voice cracked with unshed tears and year-old pains of the heart. “Please?”

 

Lucy simply snuggled in even more.

 

“ _ For you? Always.” _

 

* * *

 

Lena Luthor was not afraid. Even she wasn’t so dignified, she would laugh in Diana Prince’s face. Her half-hearted glare didn’t threaten her, it barely even made her respond to it. And yet, she was afraid. She was afraid because people said that Diana Prince could read minds,  _knew_ exactly what you were thinking. Lena feared nothing more than something finding out how messed up her mind was.

 

Currently, the Dean was pacing back and forth behind the table, her heels clicking on the wooden floor. Slowly, she pulled her chair out, and took her seat, crossing her hands on the table.  _ Classic power move. _

 

“Miss Luthor.”, she said. “First day and already in the Dean’s Office. It seems like you have a problem with authority.”

 

Lena thought that it was wiser to not respond till she knew where this conversation was going. Sadly, she was pretty sure where it was going. She was going to get fired on her first day.  _ Record time.  _

 

“You do not do well with orders.”  _ Here it is.  _ “And you show ingenuity and dedication.”

 

_ Wait, what? _

 

“The idea of pulling the drill out while compromising the tissue and muscles was inspired.”, Diana said, now with a smile. “And don’t even get me started on the time limit you and the others had to work with. Just brilliant.”

 

It took a few seconds of silence for Lena to come up with a response.

 

“Why?”, she finally said, completely confused. “Why are you telling me this?”

 

“Because you were the only one who looked guilty.”, Diana confessed, resting back into her chair and rolling a pen between her fingers. “The others looked proud, and you looked like you had made the biggest mistake of your life.”

 

And that was it: under the sympathetic observations from the Dean, Lena couldn’t control herself.

 

“I shoved a drill into a guy’s forehead!”, she all but shouted, flabbergasted. “And I can’t stop thinking about- about Robert and his wife, even though I shouldn’t be concerned about these patients, and--”

 

“Lena.”, Diana cut her off with a knowing smile. “You saved the life of a young man destined to die. Nothing is more important than that. And your concern? It shows that you care. You can’t stay too long at Grant-White without starting to care.”

 

_ Are we… bonding? We’re bonding. Okay, what do I do, pat her shoulder? _

 

Luckily, there was no need for that, as Diana leaned back in, suddenly serious.

 

“You’re responsible.”, she said, smiling. “You’ve certainly left your mark on the people here. And you care about what needs to be done. We value that here. So, just know that Grant-White won’t let you go as easily as you might think.”  _Mind reader, indeed._

 

Lena couldn’t help but smile back.

 

* * *

  
  


James and Lucy met Alex and Kara on the way to the waiting room. 

 

“So, Kara.”, Lucy said as they all walked up the empty corridor. “How are you liking it here?”

 

“Pretty good, actually.”, Kara said, nodding. “Everybody here is really nice and helpful and they all work so hard.”

 

“And no one’s threatened to fire you yet.”, Alex added. “To be fair, Snapper did come pretty close.”

 

Lucy chuckled, and even James threw in a smile. 

 

“I heard something pretty crazy about you two today.”, Lucy continued, her hands in her coat pockets. “And I have  _ got  _ to hear more.”

 

Before either of the Danvers sisters could respond, they had reached the waiting room. James stood at the door, wincing at it, as if it physically hurt him. Lucy stood out of the way, which was something he was thankful for.  _ How can I go in? After everything, telling them.... _

 

He only snapped out of it when Alex smacked him on his back, making him jump.

 

“Chin up, homeboy.”, she said, before walking in with her sister.

 

There wasn’t really anything left to do, so he followed Lucy into the room with his jaw clenched.

 

* * *

 

_ “We found Robert in a dire state, and once he started seizing….” _

 

_ “Julia’s injuries were extremely severe by the time she got to the OR. Her leg was unsalvageable on arrival…” _

 

_ “We had to operate immediately.” _

 

_ “We had to operate immediately.” _

 

_ “We were able to temporarily decrease the tension in his meninges and get him on a Dialysis machine.” _

 

_ “We tried to stop the internal bleeding, but there was a severe stomach rupture.” _

 

_ “Despite the tissue damage, he will be okay.” _

 

_ “The tissue damage was too great, and we could not save her.” _

 

Robert’s wife, Debia, nearly pounced on Alex, who held on to her as she cried on her shoulder. Kara smiled at her, her hands behind the back. Alex simply rubbed Debia’s back, shushing her, trying to stop the endless string of whispered ‘thank you’s.  _ He will be okay. _

 

Julia’s parents bore the news as many have done before, with a paralysed inability to accept it. Then Julia’s mother broke down, crying-- wailing, and James felt that she would never stop crying again. Lucy stood beside him, stricken, and slipped her hand in his, squeezing.  _ We could not save her. _

 

* * *

 

“ _ She didn’t!” _ , Lucy exclaimed, her face splitting into a grin. “ _ And you let her?!” _

 

“What can I say?”, Alex replied, shrugging. “Girl knew how to handle her drill.”

 

“Unbelievable.”, Lucy said, shaking her head as they continued their way down the stairs.

 

James wasn’t quite listening to the conversation that they were having, and he was pretty sure it included tubes, but the logical side of his mind couldn’t quite figure out why. As he muddles it over, he felt a hand at his elbow, and turned to find Kara. Apparently, she had disjointed herself from the conversation happening beside him, which now included…  _ Shakespeare? _

 

_ I swear to God, I don’t even want to know. _

 

“Hey, how are you?”, Kara asked him, her crystal blue eyes looking at him imploringly.

 

“I’m fine.”, he replied, shrugging it off, even though he knew that he was very not fine. Kara, in turn, snorted at him.

 

“Yeah, right.”, she said. “Neither you nor Lucy is truly okay. I can tell. She just hides it better.”

 

James turned to look at his wife, who was now flicking Alex as they both traded witty commentary on each other.

 

“I guess she does.”

 

“And you’re my best friend.”, Kara continued, faux punching him on the shoulder. “Hell, I’ve known you since high school. And I  _ know  _ you. So don’t hide things from me, okay?”

 

“Kara,  _ really _ , I don’t want to talk about it.”

 

“Okay, okay, sorry.”, she backed off, and James felt a little bad about it. _I have_ _been treating everyone poorly because I feel down_. He looked at Lucy, laughing and talking to Alex, and immediately made up his mind.

 

“So who is up for drinks tonight?”, James said, his face splitting into a grin. “Because I am.”

 

“Well.”, Alex said, looking at Kara beseechingly. “It would be rude to refuse.”

 

Kara rolled her eyes, but nodded in agreement. 

 

“Only if you both promise not to try to each other under the table.”, she threatened, shaking her finger at both Alex and Lucy in turn. The two females shared a quick glance, then spoke in unison.

 

“No promises.”

 

* * *

 

Kara couldn’t help but smile as they started loading everything into Alex’s Wagon, deciding to leave James and Lucy’s car in the hospital private garage (privileges) for the night. It was an unspoken understanding that none of them would be driving anywhere after they were done with the dive bar.

 

She was trying to help James push the surfboard out of the way (“ _ Just because both of you use it doesn’t mean you have to carry it everywhere!”)  _ when she saw someone walk across the parking lot to the street. 

 

“Hey, guys?”, she inquired and everybody stopped to look at her. “Would you mind if I invited another person?”

 

All three of them dismissed it as soon as they heard it, and Kara happily started jogging over, leaving a grumbling James behind.

 

“Lena!”

 

The neurologist stopped and turned sharply, shocked by the sudden call.

 

“Hey.”

 

“Hey.”

 

Kara looked into Lena’s green eyes ( _ How in the world had she thought they were blue?) _ and forgot what she was going to say.

 

“Uh, hi!”, she reiterated, playing with the strap of her satchel. “So, a couple of other people from work and I are going for a couple drinks. Well, kind of a couple drinks, it gets fairly aggressive when the real drinking starts.” She laughs a little, before shaking her head.  _ What are you doing? _ “I was wondering if you’d like to join us?”

 

“Oh, I wouldn’t like to impose.”, Lena replied, vehemently shaking her head.

 

“Oh, come on, it’ll be fun!”

 

Lena took a deep breath and seemed to contemplate a while. Kara waited patiently, eyebrows raised, licking her suddenly dry lips.  _ Say yes, say yes.  _ Finally, Lena shook her head.

 

“I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

 

“It’s okay.”, Kara said, nodding her head in understanding. “See you tomorrow, then!”

 

They both turned in opposite directions and started walking away, but Kara couldn’t help but feel slightly disappointed at the refusal.  _Why am I disappointed? It's not like I know her._

 

“Kara, are you planning to come, or are we supposed to leave you here?”, James shouted from across the lot.

 

Kara started jogging back, her satchel swinging on her hip. As she neared them she started tuning back into the conversation that they were having.

 

“And don’t you think that your misdirection with the drill worked.”, Lucy was saying. “You still need to dish on that artificial vessel thing.”

 

Both the Danvers sisters groaned. It was going to be a long night-out.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooooo, what'd you think?
> 
> Did you like it? I know that the chapter was a slower one, but this one and the last one is kind of like one episode. And I like writing in episodes. So I'm going to try to do an episode a week.
> 
> So, what do you like most? Least? What do you want to see more of, or less of? Anyone else you want to see?
> 
> Comment below, let me know.
> 
> Next time, On Operation Theatre: Alliances are formed and alliances are broken as all departments struggle over one patient. The OR1's four disasters discuss their current work situation. And a few other people enter the scene.


	3. Neurokinin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All Attendings have to work together to save a patient from certain death. Meanwhile, the ER is overcrowded and Alex doesn't know what to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys I'm back with a huge chapter!
> 
> Every single one of your comments warm my heart! Thank you!
> 
> Happy reading!

“My best friend since high school has superpowers and I come to know about it now?!”

 

James was looking at Kara in part annoyance and part disbelief, gesticulating wildly. Kara, in turn, didn’t even look up from her Pad, instead going through the X-rays of her OR patient.

 

“They are not superpowers!”, she said, rolling her eyes, as they both continued to walk down the hall. “I basically observe too much at the same time, that’s all.”

 

“That’s a super-power!”

 

“It is not!”

 

“Is too!”

 

“Is no-- Hey, does this rib look fractured to you?”

 

Kara and James both stopped walking, with James leaning in for a clearer view. Other hospital workers stopped to stare for a second. Some of them, who knew the Chief and the Attending, shook their head and moved on. This wasn’t anything brand new, for James and Kara were infamous for their heated corridor arguments.

 

“The hanging or the over-lung?”

 

“Hanging.”

 

“Err… yeah.”

 

Kara groaned in frustration, turning to see James eye-to-eye.  _ Well, more like sternum to eye, but that wasn’t the point. _

 

“I hate my life.”, she said, with as much passion as she could. James laughed in her face.  _ Like a good best friend, James is there… to always mock you. _

 

“Come on, Professor X. Let’s get you an ortho consult.”

 

“ _ James!” _

 

* * *

 

Alex was working the ER station when Kara and James approached her, bantering like usual. She rolled her eyes instinctively; how any work ever got done in the hospital was beyond her, specially when James and Kara regularly worked together.

 

“Okay, guys, listen up.”, she said, and both of them turned to look at her. “We have the result of a disastrous football game here today, the crossbar fell to the ground, so lots of people with minor injuries. They’re still coming, so the ER’s really gonna need you guys today.”

 

“James, there’s a guy with a fractured hand in Bed 3, had twenty guys pile on top of him when the football post fell. Have a look to make sure it isn’t something too severe. Just call Vasquez if you need any help.” 

 

James nodded, moving to grab a pair of latex gloves from the ER counter.

 

“Kara, Bed 8 has an old guy with a pacemaker, came to see his grandson’s game, he says that its malfunctioning, check that. Oh, and Lucy told me this morning that the kids down in paeds are missing you.” A small smile from Kara. “And remember what we talked about, okay?”

 

The three of them shared a look as they remembered their pact over drinks a week ago. Kara had told them the half-truth about her that Alex and her had agreed upon, and the three of them had made a pact never to speak of it again.  _ That has to be a one time thing. If people found out what Kara could do… _

 

James handed Kara a pair of gloves and they both started heading towards their respective beds with a nod. They had barely taken a step when the announcement system buzzed to life.

 

_ “All Attendings, please report to the Emergency Drop Point. I repeat, ALL Attendings report to the Drop Point.” _

 

“ _ All  _ Attendings?”, Alex said, even as Kara started pulling up an emergency suit from the station. “What, are they crazy?”

 

James shrugged, happy that this matter did not concern him at all.

 

“Call Snapper, if you want to.”, Kara said, but Alex could tell that she was more focused on wondering what was in the ambulance that was arriving.

 

“I’ll handle it.”, she assured with a wink. “Go do your job.”

 

* * *

 

Lena rushed up to the Drop Point to find all the Attending standing there. 

 

M’gann, the Ortho Attending, was standing quietly in a corner, her arms crossed as she stared at the empty area. Lena had talked to her once in her week here, when she’d offered to make her a “mean” latte in the morning. Lena appreciated her passivity, and her ability to stay calm in any situation.

 

Vasquez, the General Attending, and Lucy, the Paeds Attending, were talking to each other, nodding at what the other said. Lena had talked to Vasquez a few times in the lunchroom, but other than that, she kept to herself-- something Lena could appreciate. Lucy, on the other hand, Lena had not had the honor to talk to. For someone who was supposed to work with children and babies, Lucy looked way too threatening.

 

And then there was Kara, who was crouching on the ground, her hands on her knees, as if preparing to attack. Since their first day together, and Lena’s subsequent rejection, they hadn’t really talked, and she felt like Kara had been avoiding her.  _ She deserved to. I basically told her that I wanted nothing to do with her. _

 

_ “So, a couple of other people from work and I are going for a couple drinks… I was wondering if you’d like to join us?” _

 

And she’s rudely refused. She had refused because she was an idiot and a coward.  _ What if?  _ Her mind had screamed back when she had tried to say yes.  _ What if they all hate you? They certainly have the reason to.  _ And she’d been physically paralysed against going with her heart, saying yes… developing a relationship, relationships.

 

_ I think I’ll have to pass. _

 

The moment it had left her mouth, when she saw the flicker of disappointment that she saw, that disappeared around the all-too fake understanding smile way too quickly.  _ Idiot, idiot, idiot. Coward, coward, coward. _

 

The crescending wailing of the ambulance alerted everyone. Every other action stopped as all the Attendings turned their focus to the incoming vehicle. When it did come, Lena thought that it was driving way too fast, way above the standard ambulance speed limit.  _ What is happening today? _

 

The ambulance doors opened with a jerk, and M’gann and Lucy ran over with a stretcher. The other Attendings ran up behind them. Lena was part afraid and part curious.

 

None of them were prepared for what they saw.

 

A young boy, barely fourteen years old, looked like he had been buried alive. His face is punctured in, a clear skull fracture, and Lena could  _ see  _ his brain. His ribs were crushed in as well, and Lena had to stop observing because it was making her nauseous, something that she wasn’t used to after so long.  _ How is he still breathing? _

 

One look at the other’s sullen faces and she knew that they were also thinking the same thing.  _ How are we even going to do anything about this? _

 

“We need to operate.”, M’gann said, breaking the shocked silence. Even she looked a little green in the face as she gestured Lucy over. “Immediately.” As soon as the ambulance assistants had latched him in, they started pushing  him in.

 

Lena could already hear Lucy and M’gann grunting as they pushed the bed as fast as they could, could hear Vasquez’s pants as she ran beside her. Kara ran ahead of all of them, shouting fiercely at the top of her voice, pushing interns and residents aside on her way to the OR.

 

“ _ Get out of the way! Get OUT of the way!” _

 

* * *

 

“Hey, J’onn?”, Alex said, trying to be as casual as she could. J’onn, however, immediately caught on to the pleading tone, looking up from his ER template, raising an eyebrow to tell Alex to drop the act.

 

“Listen.”, she said, her shoulders falling. “Could you talk to Snapper? I need him here right now.”

 

“Snapper?”, J’onn said, surprised. Since the fiasco last week, ( _ Diana had not let him hear the end of that)  _ the Danvers sisters worked together pretty much all the time that they could.  _ Though I have to accept, they make a good team. _

 

“Yeah, Kara got called for an operation this morning. In fact, all attendings are gone. Didn’t you hear that?”

 

_ Yeah, about today morning, there’s no easy way to say that I was late to work without embarrassing myself, is there? _

 

“Yeah, yeah I remember now.”, he tried, but Alex’s look directed towards him immediately told him that she wasn’t buying it. “Well, Snapper is in surgery right now, so that’s not an option.”

 

“So.”, Alex asked, and J’onn was glad her attention was diverted. “Who do I call then?”

 

“Well,”, J’onn pondered, wincing. “The Resident position’s still empty, and you can’t really call the intern, so I guess you’ll have to wait.”

 

Alex sighed in disappointment.

 

“This is bad organisation.”, she said, shaking her head. J’onn couldn’t help but agree. 

 

_ I’m late one day, and they turn my hospital into a malfunctioning disaster.  _

 

* * *

 

“Okay, so how are we gonna do this?”, Vasquez asked as all five of them started scrubbing in, making the waiting lounge very crowded. “And what are we gonna do anyway?”

 

“The brain’s the main problem right now.”, Lucy said, looking for scrubs in the tank. “But we have to remove the bones first, so it’s M’gann and Lena inside right now. I’m gonna stay in all the time.”

 

Lena and M’gann nodded silently, sharing a confident glance and nodding. Kara and Vasquez nodded as well. All of them were looking up to Lucy as the leader; a fact that surprised precisely no one.

 

“Kara and Susan, stick around because you may be needed to scrub-in at any time; till then, see if you can get me the work-up for him, or anything about him, really.”

 

Kara and Vasquez walked out together, leaving behind Lena, Lucy and M’gann.

 

“Well, ladies.”, Lucy said, with a cockiness that Lena was not that surprised by. “Time to save a life.”

 

And in they walked.

 

There were no interns in the room today, considering that they couldn’t spare any. The accident at the field had not been that serious, considering that the post had hit no one except the patient in front of them, but the panic that had followed had created a stampede, which was disastrous enough.

 

Their OR covers were laid on them quickly, along with their masks, and they rushed over to the patient. His heart and lungs had been sustained by artificial machines and ventilators but there was almost no recoverable part of his face. Lucy’s face paled.

 

_ Grafting, so much grafting. _

 

She started her examination as Lena prepared the bone saw. The back of the skull was crushed in, but was surprisingly not fractured. They would still have to cut out the indented portion and artificially refuse the area, but it wasn’t something life-threatening. His forehead, on the other hand, had taken the brunt of it, and the skull was just… gone. There was no other way to put it. She could see the brain pulsating behind the thin film of the cerebrospinal fluid.

 

His nose had also collapsed onto itself, which would need a plastic surgeon. His eyes were not damaged beyond repair, but would need either a therapist or an optical device for them to functional properly again after the intense pressure laid on them. His trachea had only not collapsed due to the tube going through it.

 

His ribs had broken and shattered every which way, and were even poking out of his skin.  _ Yeah, that should be my first priority, removing them and replacing them with a 3-d printed alternative.  _ Lucy heard the saw buzzing, and Lena taking it, getting her micro-tools necessary to make sure that the brain and spine had not been damaged.

 

_ To work the spine, we would have to flip him up. And for that, we’ll have to make sure that his lungs or stomach aren’t further damaged. _

 

Stopping her thoughts, she proceeded to the limbs. The arms were badly bruised, but except for the muscle atrophy and the muscle therapy that was sure to follow. The legs, however, were already a horrible shade of azure, and Lucy immediately knew that there was no saving them. They would have to be removed and replaced with amputations.

 

Lucy sighed.  _ It’s like the longest examination paper of my life. _

 

“M’gann, with me.”, she said, heading up from near the legs to the lungs. “We need to remove the shattered bones, salvage what we can, make sure we leave the lungs in working order.”

 

M’gann nodded, determined.

 

“Lena, you okay up there?”

 

Simply a nod in reply as Lena had already put on the zoom-in lenses that all neurosurgeons seemed to love, and was already starting to poke around his brain.

 

“Well then. Time to work for a living.”

 

* * *

 

“So we have to ask the school authorities for the records of our John Sue.”, Vasquez said as they exited the OR Bay. “Then tally them to the records of this hospital, and alert the family that their son was the only one extremely injured in the disaster.”

 

Kara sighed, shoving her hands into her pocket. “Yep, pretty much.”

 

“I’ll make the call.”, Vasquez replied, nodding. “Do you have his blood?” Kara nodded, pulling the vial out of her lab coat. “You can run the sample, make sure he isn’t reactive to something we may have to give him.”

 

Vasquez went the other direction, and Kara started walking towards the pathology. Her stethoscope swung around her neck. She was pretty shook by the patient’s condition. Her  _ stupid  _ mind had instinctively taken out the probability of his complete recovery, and landed at a whopping zero. She hated her mind in these moments.

 

On her way towards the pathology, Kara heard shouting, frantic screaming coming from the inner reception.  _ A wayward patient?  _ Immediately, Kara changed her route, going towards the screaming in hopes of offering some help. Instead, she found Mike, the Cardio Intern, harshly holding back an old woman who did not look like a patient.

 

“ _Please, please!_ My son is in here somewhere! I can’t find him, _please!_ ”, she was screaming, fighting against Mike as he tried to pacify her.

 

“Ma’am, I’m sorry, your son will be in the ER, or he won’t be here at all.”, Mike was saying, trying to unsuccessfully calm her.

 

“HE’S _ HERE _ , I KNOW IT! HE HAS TO BE! JUST LISTEN TO ME!”, she replied, her breathing now laboured as she fought harder against Mike’s hold on her hands. People in the corridors were turning, looking at the scene that was being created.

 

“I promise you.”, Mike said, trying to pacify her, “I promise you, your son is gonna be okay an--”

 

“Ma’am, ma’am.”, Kar interrupted, putting her hands on the woman’s shoulders and looking her dead in the eye. “Please, would you listen to me?” My woman stopped struggling a bit, and Mike loosened his hold on her. “I don’t know where your son is, and I don’t know how he is.” A strangled sob. “But I can promise you that I will try my best to find him and help him, and make sure that the best services are provided to him. I promise you that, okay?”

 

MIke had finally let go of her, taking a step back. The woman nodded, her whole body shaking before she burst into tears and started crying into Kara’s shoulder, who held her close, snaking her arms around the woman’s shoulder and patting her back. She saw someone she trusted walking across the corridor.

 

“Jess!”, she said, and the Neuro Resident turned to look at her in a raised eyebrow. Since the month that Kara had been here, Jess had been friendly towards her, though overly formal. Since the last week, however, Kara felt that Jess had been giving her the cold shoulder, and she couldn’t figure out why. However, the Resident immediately responded, walking over to Kara.

 

“Please take this lady over to the waiting hall, and get her something to drink, on the house.”, Jess nodded, a smirk on her face, for she also realised that “the house” meant “Cardio Attending, standing in front of her”. She nodded.

 

“May I know your name, ma’am?”, Kara asked softly, squeezing the woman’s shoulder as she extracted herself from Kara.

 

“May. May Parker.”, she said, sniffling.

 

“Well, May, this doctor here is gonna take you to the waiting room. May I know your son’s name?”

 

“Peter.”

 

“Okay, I’ll try to find Peter for you, okay?”

 

She nodded, and let Jess lead her away to the waiting lounge. Meanwhile, Kara turned on Mike, standing behind her, looking at her with an expression she didn’t quite know where to place. She was suddenly furious.

 

“Listen to me, because this is the first and last time anyone is ever going to tell this to you.”, She said, and Mike gulped. “Never,  _ ever,  _ make a patient a promise that you know you can’t keep. Don’t try to pacify them, and break their heart when the truth inadvertently comes out. They deserve to know the truth.”

 

Kara hadn’t even realised that she had started speaking about Krypton, and how everyone had hidden the truth from her till she was thirteen years old; when the lies had hurt more than any truth they could have told her ever would have. She stopped talking when her eyes started stinging from tears that had started to rise, her throat getting clogged up.

 

“Yes, ma’am, I’m so sorry.”, MIke was saying, his eyes to the ground. “It won’t happen again.”

 

“Good.” she said, and turned and walked away, heading for the ER. In her empathy towards the woman looking for her family, Kara forgot about the vial of blood in her pocket.

 

* * *

 

“So, uh, Ben. Ben Roberts.”, Alex said, heading up to the OR bed where an elderly man was lying quietly, his hands folded over his chest, something clutched in his palm. He had been one of the quietest and most well mannered patients in the most hectic day. (Overexcited high school students made for terrible sitting ducks. The interns had their hands simply controlling them.

 

“Yep, that’s me.”, he said, an amicable smile on his face.

 

“Well, Ben, could you tell me what the problem is?”, Alex said, returning the smile, keeping her Surface with the resident list aside.

 

“Nothing much, I hate to be such a bother.”, he said, his brow furrowing. “But when the post fell, my heart almost stopped. Since then, it’s just this weird pain in my lungs, whenever I breathe.”

 

“That,s okay, Ben, and you have pacemaker, correct?”, Alex asked, writing the information on the patient’s sheet.  _ I really need a cardiologist here, because… lung pains only make sense if something was disturbed which makes the heart irrelevant, along with the pacemaker…. So what is it? _

 

“Okay, Ben, I need to check your chest, so could you move your hands please?”, Alex said, setting down her writing board and her sheet. “Tell me when you feel something.”

 

Ben moved his hand and Alex finally saw the thing clutched in his hand-- a little velvet box, that belonged to just one thing: an engagement ring. Ben followed her line of sight, chuckling a little and rolling the box in his palm.

 

“I was going to propose to her today, after the game.”, he said, with a look of longing. “She thinks I’m out of the city on work, and my grandson and I, we were going to surprise her when she came from work. We had a deal, the two of us. I would take him to the game to hang out with his friends without telling her, and he was going to go down on one knee in my place.” He chuckled, smiling a little bit.

 

“Well, all I know is.”, Alex said, starting to poke around his chest for protrusions. “That if two people truly love each other, there never really is a bad time to ask. So hold onto that ring, okay?”

 

Ben smiled kindly at her, his eyes crinkling.

 

“Thank you.”, he said, and a comfortable silence emerged, broken only by the frequent shouting of a bored teenager. Soon, Alex had checked the entirety of Ben’s chest, and hadn’t found a single protrusion. She didn’t know whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.

 

“I can’t find anything that is wrong, Ben.”, she finally said. “But I’m going to find you a consult, okay?”

 

“Don’t worry about me.”, he said, shaking his head. “Just make sure these kids are okay. And if you find my grandson, could you tell me if he’s alright?”

 

“Of course.”, Alex said. “What’s his name?”

 

“Peter Parker.”

 

* * *

 

“Hey.”, Kara said to J’onn as she entered the ER. “Could you run a name for me?”

 

“Sure.”, he said, pulling up his Surface and opening the ER Registry. 

 

“Parker. Peter Parker.”

 

“There isn’t…”, he said, scrolling through. “Anyone with that name today.”

 

Kara sighed, shaking her head. 

 

“Were any patients sent to any other hospitals?”

 

“As far as the 911 people told me, no. They brought all the injured here.”

 

“Any John Sues?”

 

J’onn winced, for they didn’t really keep a record of the Sues in the registry, and he hadn’t been here this morning to keep track of them personally. She shook his head a little bit, opting for the half-lie.

 

“Not that I know of, no.”

 

Kara nodded, looking even more dejected. 

 

“Well, thanks anyway, J’onn.”

 

J’onn suddenly realized that Kara was calling him J’onn, his real name, instead of Hank, the name he had adopted in America. She had probably heard Alex say it ( how she had discovered it was another long story) and pieced the truth together. The tiny gesture warmed his heart.

 

“I’ll see what I can do.”

 

Kara immediately perked up, squealing and throwing his arms around him. He rolled his eyes, trying to hold back the smile spreading on his face.

 

“Thanks, Chief!”, she said, before zooming off to find her sister.

 

_ These Danvers are going to be the death of me. _

 

* * *

 

“He is heavily concussed. “There are going to be a few problems for him in the future, but otherwise, his brain is actually not in that bad a shape. His base functions are all good.”

 

“That’s amazing.”, Lucy said as she took out another piece of the shattered ribcage. “But he still can’t breathe on his own. Which means…”

 

“That the problem is the spine.”, M’gann completed, and Lena sighed in frustration.

 

“I need him flipped over to check the spinal cord.”, Lena said, finally pulling up her lenses.

 

“And for that, he needs his front done up.”. Lucy followed up, turning to look at Lena. “How long does he have before you need to start working on the spine?”

 

“Well, considering that there is no noticeable neural activity between the cord and the brain, we need to hurry to make sure we don’t lose any nerve endings. We’ve already had him on the table for about half-an-hour, so I have to start in the next ten minutes, or we risk losing  _ every _ organ.”

 

“Ten minutes to work on the heart,  _ and  _ the lungs?”, M’gann said. “We can’t do that.”

 

Lucy and Lena looked at each other, and immediately knew what the other was thinking. Lena shook her head, clearly disagreeing with Lucy’s thought process.  _ You can’t ask her to do it, and you and I both know it.  _ Lucy’s face hardened, in determination or defiance, Lena wasn’t sure.

 

“Call Kara and Vasquez in.”, she said, tossing the scalpel on the tray and walking towards the scrub room. Lena followed, shaking her head, as M’gann continued to work on him.

 

_ I need to ask her of a miracle. _

 

* * *

 

“Kara, oh thank God.”, Alex said when she saw her sister walk towards out of the ER.

 

“Hey, Alex, what’s up?”, she said, crossing her hands as she turned around.

 

“I need you to give me a consult on a guy.”, Alex said, and Kara winced.

 

“Alex, I’m sorry, but I’m really--”

 

“It’ll just take a minute. Please?”, Alex said, trying to look as pleading as she could.

 

Kara sighed, adjusting the stethoscope hung around her neck.

 

“Fine, where is he?”

 

Alex led Kara over to Ben, who was still sitting there quietly, his hands still crossed over his chest.

 

“Hey, Ben.”, Alex said, as they neared him. “Kara here’s a cardiologist. She’s going to check you, okay?”

 

“Sure, check away.”, he said with a smile, coughing a little. That was when Alex noticed that he was looking a little paler. A look at Kara’s concerned face told her that her sister had picked up on it.

 

Kara checked him with the stethoscope a couple times, moving around, asking Ben to take deep breaths in and out. After a few seconds, we hit something, and frowned.

 

“Ben, may I know your operation history?”, she said, pulling the stethoscope buds out of her ear. 

 

“Just the one, for my pacemaker.”

 

Kara’s eyes widened in realisation, before she went “ah”, and started grinning. She put a hand of the guy’s shoulder, turning to look at an impatiently waiting Alex.

 

“Oxygen supply for a minute or so, and he should be good at go.”, she said, smiling at Ben, who nodded his thanks, patting Kara’s hand which was on his shoulder. Alex sighed in relief.

 

“Thank you to both of you sisters.”, he said, his eyes twinkling as both of them turned to him in surprise. He chuckled. “It’s in your body movement. I noticed you two bantering out there. Honestly, first I thought that you two were together.” They both frowned in disgust. “But then I realised that it was more than that.”

 

Kara and Alex looked at each other for a moment, smiling, before Kara turned to Ben.

 

“Well, Ben, you’re going to be a-okay, and then you can go propose to the beautiful future wife of yours.”, Ben let out a huff of surprise. Kara patted the little bulge in his chest pocket. “You’re not the only observant one here.”

 

Kara and Alex walked away from his bed, smiling.

 

“So, what was it?”, Alex asked, her brow furrowed slightly.

 

“Well.”, Kara started, her eyes sparkling like they did when she was proud of herself. “When the post fell, he said he stopped breathing, right?”

 

Alex shook her head in a ‘something like that’ gesture. 

 

“That led to the angina pectoris. Usually, the cardiac muscles slow down and give you an indication, but a pacemaker doesn’t let it do that. So his muscle walls weren’t oxygenated enough, and that was what probably was causing the pains.”

 

Alex’s eyebrows were raised after the mini-rant, a small proud big sister smile on her face.

 

“Great guy.”, Kara commented.

 

“Yeah, he really is.”

 

“Hey, Alex.”, Kara said, her face thoughtful. “If you’re free right now, could you go meet a woman in the waiting hall? Her name’s May Parker. I really have to go run these bloo--”

 

Before Kara could finish her sentence, her pager started ringing aggressively.

 

“Crap, crap, crap.”, Kara sid, dumping everything on the station. Alex took her files from her as Kara started racing out of the ER, barely making the right turn out of the door. People jumped out of the way as Alex watched her go.

 

_ Well, I guess it’s time to go meet May Parker. _

* * *

 

Kara came in rushing and sweaty, panting with her hands on her knees. Vasquez soon followed, not too different.

 

“What did you find?”, Kara asked in between pants, looking at Vasquez. Vasquez’s sullen face told her everything she needed to know.

 

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”, she said, grinding her teeth. Kara patted her on the back as she went to dig for some shoe covers.

 

Lucy and Lena came out of the OR, glaring at each other.  _ What is that about? _

 

“Vasquez, scrub in and go help M’gann remove the bone fragments.”

 

The General Attending said nothing, simply nodding and heading into the OR.

 

The fact that Lena and Lucy both stayed quiet till Vasquez had gone inside and the door had been firmly shut should have been Kara’s first warning sign. As soon as Vasquez exited, however, Lena turned to her and Kara got lost in her green eyes for a second.

 

“You can’t do it.”, she said, her eyes wide in concern. Kara’s brow furrowed.

 

“Can’t do what?”

 

“Listen, Kara.”, Lucy said, raising a placating hand towards her. “I won’t ask this of you if there was any other choice, but we literally  _ don’t  _ have time. I need you to do your weird superhero thing and get this guy’s thoracic done in fifteen minutes.”

 

Kara paled, her eyes flitting across the empty air as if she was calculating something, wringing her hands. After a painfully long minute, she shook her head.

 

“I can’t.”, she said, her eyes downcast.

 

“Well, you’ll  _ have  _ to.”, Lucy snapped. 

 

“She doesn’t  _ have  _ to do anything.”, Lena cut in sharply, and Lucy pretty much growled at her in return.

 

“No, I literally can’t.”, Kara continued, and the two stared at her with confused expressions. “I can increase my own speed, but I can’t increase his body’s speed. I need his heart to do its thing if I need to make sure it works alright.” Kara swallowed slowly. “It’s gonna take an hour, minimum.”

 

Lucy let out a huff of denial, crossing her arms.

 

“So, what you’re telling me.”, she said, her voice scathing. “Is that you, with  _ all  _ your amazing abilities, can  _ do nothing,  _ and  _ we  _ can do nothing, and this boy is going to  _ die? _ ”

 

“No.”, Lena said, but there wasn’t any fight left in her voice. In fact, she wasn’t even looking at anyone in the room, her eyes blank as she seemed to ponder something. 

 

“Care to _ explain yourself? _ ”, Lucy said, supremely annoyed.

 

“What if, instead of flipping him over, you work on him while we keep him frozen up.”, she said. Kara and Lucy both opened their mouths to interrupt. “No, no, listen. We’re going to a good part of the body function anyway, so what if we disrupt his Basolateral Amygdala with Neurokinin B?”

 

There was a second of silence while Lucy and Kara caught up with what Lena was saying.

 

“The nerve endings will be preserved.”, Kara said, her eyes widening.

 

“Thus preventing the organs from damage too severe.”, Lucy said, a small smile blooming on her face. “It’s common, safe, non-reactive, non-interfering…”

 

“Lena, it’s genius!”, Kara said, a gigantic smile on her face. “You’re a genius!”

 

Lena couldn’t help but smile back shyly. 

 

“Let’s do it!”, Lucy said, now grinning herself.

 

The three marched in in much higher spirits.

 

* * *

 

“Pushing in two milligrams now.”, Lena said, her thumb slowly pressing in the syringe, watching the translucent liquid travel its way into his brain.

 

Kara stopped her work on his heart for a moment, looking up at the heart rate monitor, before nodding and looking down again. Lucy, M’gann and Susan had started working on his abdomen and limbs, giving Kara the freedom of movement she needed. 

 

“Kara, talk to me.”, Lucy said as she checks the gastrointestinal tract. “What’s going on?”

 

“The lungs are fine.”, Kara said, groaning slightly. “I mean, a lot of the pleura and quite a few bronchioles are still pretty damaged, but it isn’t really dire condition. He could probably breathe on his own, even. His pericardium is torn, though. I can fix that”

 

Kara stopped talking for a second as she fished out an exceptionally sharp bone fragment and dropped it on the plate next to her.

 

“And boy, are his arteries damaged. I mean, most of them are just torn, nothing a clamp can’t fix-- but there are  _ a lot  _ of them to go through.”

 

“By which you mean you need time.”, M’gann finished, her eyes narrowing.

 

“Yes.”, Kara sighed, shaking her head. “I can’t really clamp all of them at once-- the body won’t be able to take the pressure build-up. I need them to even out one-by-one.”

 

“Which means?”, Vasquez nudged, trying to loosen a stiff muscle in his leg.

 

“Which means that I need about an hour.”

 

“We could do an hour.”, Lena said, nodding. “I think that Neurokinin will hold.”

 

“Well, hurry up anyway.”, Lucy said. “We don’t want to make any chances.”

 

They all worked peacefully together, not overlapping each other or fighting at all. It was a pleasant surprise, since no one expected all the Attendings to work together so well. In fact, all of them believed that they may be able to rescue the kid as much as they could. 

 

Except that about fifteen minutes later, everything went to hell.

 

“Something’s wrong.”, Kara said, stopping her constant movement around the heart. She felt like her own heart had dropped out of her chest and all her blood was pooling near her legs. She couldn’t breathe.

 

Everybody else had also stopped working, looking at Kara in alarm.

 

“What?”, Lucy asked, retracting her scalpel. 

 

“The heart rate’s too uneven, his blood is thicker.”, Kara said, throwing away everything else that she was using, getting away from the table.

 

“What are you talking about?”, M’gann said, shaking her head. “There isn’t anyt--”

 

M’gann didn’t get to complete her sentence, because the heart rate monitor started going crazy, buzzing insanely. 

 

“His heart rate’s falling, falling fast.”, Susan said, stepping away. “What is  _ going on?!” _

 

“The neurokinin!”, Kara said, dragging over the crash cart. “He’s reacting to the neurokinin. Pushing in two milligrams noradrenaline.”

 

“No,  _ wait!” _ , Lena said, snatching it from her hand. “They have the same base chemical structure. We can’t use that. We have to do it manually.”

 

“ _ Shit.” _ , Lucy said, a hand on her forehead.

 

Kara went for the rods without questioning her, adjusting them near his heart.

 

“ _ Charging to 140… Clear!” _

 

Everybody moved away, and the heart in sight pumped at the shock. The heart rate rose, but fell again, maintaining itself just a little bit higher. Kara shook her head, incoherently mumbling to herself.

 

“ _ Charging to 160… Clear!” _

 

* * *

 

“So, then, I’m ready to scream my head off, I mean, he’s just too late, eleven-thirty is no time to come home.”, May Parker was saying. “When her pulls out a carton of eggs that he  _ walked _ to the other side of town to get.”

 

She sighed wistfully, a tiny smile on her face, though her mouth still quivered with the tears that were barely at bay.

 

“How-- how was I supposed to stay angry with him?”, she said, taking a swig from the orange juice she’d purchased ‘on the house’.

 

“I get it.”, Alex said, a hand on May’s shoulder. “One day when I was little, all the paints in the house disappeared. Apparently, it turns out that my little sister had taken all of them to make her ‘masterpiece’ in the garage. It was a picture of the family.”

 

Alex, to this day, kept it in her room. (It was well-hidden, to make sure no one ever found it, or found that Alex kept it as one of the things closest to her heart.) May chuckled wetly.

 

“Mary and Harry, his parents…”, May said, a fresh wave of tears rising. “They died, when he was ten-years-old. Car accident-- no way anyone… the doctors couldn’t have done anything. He is all I have. If I lose him…”

 

Alex didn’t quite know how to respond. She wasn’t that good with the consoling part of the practise (she usually left that to her people’s-person sister) so Alex opted to not speak at all, instead choosing to rub her shoulder.

 

“I told him!”, May exclaimed suddenly, and Alex almost jumped out of her seat. People turned to glance at them. “I told him to not go to the game! But he wouldn’t listen! He won’t stop pestering me about it, or buttering Ben about it!”

 

Alex was about to say something, when May’s words finally registered. Her eyes widening, her jaw dropping open slightly.

 

“I’m sorry, did you just say  _ Ben?” _ , she asked, and May nodded. “As in, Ben Roberts?”

 

May nodded, extremely confused at the smile that was slowly blooming on Alex’s face.

 

* * *

 

“What do we do?”, Lucy asked, pacing in the OR as Kara delivered the final shock to the heart and it balanced out.

 

“Well, we need to combat the reaction to the Neurokinin.”, Lena said, her arms crossed. “But most of them are going to be through the gastric route. We can’t do that with him opened up. We  _ need  _ to close him in an hour, or it’s no use.”

 

“Well, what’s the point if he’s going to be a vegetable anyway?!” Lucy said, stamping her foot.

 

“He won’t be dead!”, Lena replied, her face contorting in anger.

 

“He would be worse! Don’t yo--”

 

“Both of you  _ shut up! _ ”, Kara interrupted, and both Lena and Lucy turned to look at her in alarm. Kara, however, couldn’t care less about them in the moment. “Vasquez, M’gann: Get me another OR table.” Neither of them moved. “ _ NOW!”  _

 

An angry Kara was sufficiently scary. Vasquez and M’gann stormed out, dragging in another metal table from the OR next door. Meanwhile, Kara started to prepare the bone saw.

 

“Kara, what the hell?!”, Lucy said, looking at her in confusion.

 

“No time to explain.”, she said, drops of perspiration starting to appear on her forehead. That was how Lena knew that she was doing her thing again. “Both of you, look after him.”

 

As soon as Susan and M’gann came in, Kara ran over to the table. Without another word, she started cutting into the metal of the surface.

 

“ _ What are you doing?!”,  _ Vasquez said, gesturing wildly. It was the first time Lena had seen her freak out.

 

“Cutting the table.”, she said as sparks flew at her face, as if cutting into the OR table was an everyday affair. 

 

“ _ WHY?!” _ , Lucy said, shaking her hands wildly, walking up to the table.

 

“So that we can operate.”, Kara said. “I’ll go under and do the heart, and Lena can do his spine after we flip him over.”

 

“How the hell is that supposed to work?”, M’gann said, shaking her head in disbelief.

 

“Why won’t it?”, Kara said, tossing her bone saw away as she raced back to the patient. Stopping for a second, she looked at the other Attendings in the room. “Are you going to help me or not?”

 

The four doctors looked at each other, gauging the facial expressions. The remaining three turned to Lucy, and she realised that they were waiting for her decision. Lucy knew very clearly how insane the idea was… and yet, she knew Kara too. And despite her mad scientist tendencies, Kara was truly a great doctor. Sighing, she walked towards the original table, helping Kara lift the guy. The other doctors joined in as well. 

 

As soon as they had gotten the set-up (in record time, in fact) Kara slid under the table, her feet visibly poking out from the other side. She extended her hand out, her face completely out of view, and Lucy heard a muffled “scalpel”. Lena couldn’t hold it in any longer, and started laughing behind her mask.

 

“This is crazy.”, she said, shaking her head. Lucy couldn’t help but completely agree.

 

“Um, Kara?”, M’gann was saying, crouching down to hand Kara a scalpel. “You do realise that gravity acts downwards, right?”

 

“That’s what this is for.”, she said, jutting her other hand out and waving a bunch of white packing material.

 

“You can’t pack blood.”, Vasquez said, frowning. 

 

“Nope.”, Kara agreed, hands disappearing under the table again.

 

_ I swear to God this girl is going to be the death of me. _

 

Lucy crouched down as well, lying on her back and nudging Kara, who was already stuffing the area with as much packing as she could.

 

“Shift up.”, she said, and kara turned to stare at her.

 

“What? No.”, she replied, frowning.

 

“This is my patient, and you know damn well I’m not letting you get in on this alone.”, Lucy said.

 

“Lucy, listen.”, Kara said, in equal parts exasperation and understanding. “I know you wanna do it yourself, but just trust me, okay?”

 

Lucy didn’t say anything for a moment, even though she felt extremely hurt.

 

“Trust me?”, kara asked again, looking at her imploringly. Lucy looked at her electric blue eyes, ready to fight, and made up her mind.  _ I hate this.  _

 

“Okay.”, she said, begrudgingly nodding. “Okay, just tell me what you need us to do, okay?” Kara nodded, determined. “And  _ listen  _ to me, no arguments.”

 

“Aye, aye.”, Kara said, a little smile on her face. “Could you get me clamps down here?”

 

Lucy nodded, standing back up again. Lena was already starting to work on his spine, a thin cut down the back as she started examining every single vertebra. M’gann and Vasquez had restarted working 

 

“The thoracic and lumbar are okay.”, Lena said, surprised. “A little damage to the sacral region, but now’s not the time for that. So basically, I just have to repair the cervical, and we’ll be good to go.”

 

Lucy felt something rise in her chest-- a feeling of victory.

 

“Kara, how’re you going down there?”

 

“A little longer.”, she said. Her voice was sounding strained, in a way that Lucy did not like. She bent down to glance under the table, immediately looking up again.  _ I will never forget what I just saw _ , we thought, for she’s just glanced at a Kara covered already completely in blood. It looked like a slaughter house down there.

 

“No one else look down.”, she said, hating that her voice squeaked. Lucy and M’gann looked up at her questioningly. “Kara,  _ what the hell ?!” _

 

“Yeah, M’gann was right.”, Kara said, way too nonchalantly. “There’s a little blood dripping down.”

 

“ _ A little?!” _

 

“Let’s just say that I can’t take enough showers after this, and call it even?”

 

Lucy didn’t know how to respond. They continues to work for another half-hour or so, going at a good pace. The artery clamps were done, and Kara was now making sure that the pericardium layer was firmly sealed. Lena had worked through about five of the regions of the cervical and Susan and M’gann were steadily working on the limbs. 

 

Lucy’s father used to say that in medicine, probability wasn’t a thing. Instead, Murphy’s Law applied.  _ Whatever could go wrong, would go wrong. _

 

It couldn’t be truer than today.

 

The heart monitor went insane (again), and the diastole started thunderously falling. Immediately, Susan and M’gann dropped everything, running over to the crash cart. Lena didn’t move, instead continuing her work with doubled speed. Lucy took out the electric rods, throwing them to Kara, who was throwing away her utensils.

 

“His heart’s fighting against the Neurokinin reaction.”, Lucy said, sweating. “We have to shock his neurons back into operation again.”

 

“No, wait!”, Lena said, shaking her head. “If you shock him now, the spinal cord will be gone.  _ Nothing  _ to salvage.”

 

And here Lucy stood, having to make a decision she never wanted to make. Should she ask Kara to shock him or let Lena continue her work, let him flatline?

 

“Ready.”, Kara said from under the table.

 

“Charging to 180…”, Susan said, turning the knob.

 

“Wait,  _ wait!”,  _ Lena said, wincing, refused to clear the area.

 

“Kara, do it.”, Lucy said, closing her eyes.

 

“Lucy…”

 

“Do it!”

 

“ _ Clear!” _

 

Lena jumped out of the way as Kara electrocuted him, his back arching as the current went through him and the hand kicked back up.

 

“ _ NO!”,  _ Lena exclaimed, her face contorted in pain, as she threw down her equipment and walked out.

 

_ They had saved his life, but at what cost? _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo, what did you think?
> 
> What would you like to see more of? Less of? Which character is your favourite, or your least favourite?
> 
> Comment below, let me know.

**Author's Note:**

> So, what do you think?
> 
> Anything at all? Do you want me to continue??
> 
> Comment below, let me know!


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